In Cuba, every one calls him Fidel as if they not only know him, but have a personal relationship with him.  In a way, they do.  He has cast a long shadow over the island and those who live there or lived there at one time.  He has, directly or indirectly controlled almost every aspect of their lives.  Those who live in Cuba today depend on Fidel and his regime for their livelihood, their well being and even their sense of self worth.  Those who are Cuban, but have left Cuba are, for the most part sustained by their hatred of him and a desire for revenge that transcends reason.

Fidel was born to the middle class in Cuba, but he, of course, rejected class in his pursuit of a more perfect communist/socialist society.  In 1960 following the unlikely success of his revolution, one of the first properties he appropriated for the state was that of his own family.  That’s what I’d call a true believer (or a madman).   He was an indifferent student at the best University in Cuba preferring to spend his time organizing student groups to protest the status quo and fighting other student groups for power.  It has been alleged that Fidel shot a contending student leader in the back with the pistol that he routinely carried in his belt.  It was in his student days that he found his knack of long winded oratory that evidently moved others to his will.  Although he attended the University as both an undergraduate and as a law student, I can find no evidence that he ever received a diploma.  Turns out, he didn’t really need one.

The story of Fidel’s victory over government forces led by the supremely corrupt Batista is well known, and I can add nothing to this episode of his life except to say that I found numerous reports of his shortcomings as a generalisimo.  He eschewed strategy of any sort over the exhortations for others to do his bidding.  Largely due to a confluence of events, Fidel was supported not only by the downtrodden who had been abused by those in power, he also received the adulation, money and public support of businessmen, academics, and non-aligned public figures.  I found one credible report that immediately after Fidel installed his first puppet government in Havana and found the treasury bare of any but loose change,  many business leaders, including the Bacardi Company, Cuba’s largest and most profitable company,  pre-payed the taxes they would otherwise be owing later in the year in order to give Fidel time to put things in order.  They came to regret this gesture of good faith and their support of Fidel in short order.

Doubts began to arise in the minds of citizens of good faith when Fidel proceeded immediately to execute hundreds of those who were former enemies but had pledged allegiance to him.  No one knows the exact number, but it was at least five hundred souls and more likely thousands.  No judicial process.  Just line them up against and wall and fire away.  As I mentioned earlier, he proceeded with agrarian reform by taking land from large land owners and redistributing it to small farmers who were organized in state collectives.  He nationalized  all existing corporate assets regardless of the nationality of ownership.  This hit US interests hard because US companies controlled as much as seventy percent of the Cuban economy through such household names as United Fruit Company and International Telephone and Telegraph.

In retaliation, in March of 1960 President Eisenhower mandated a termination of all sugar trade with Cuba, ended all oil deliveries, and cut off all arms sales to Cuba.  This is generally considered to be the beginning of what was to become virtually a total embargo of commercial activity between the US and Cuba.  Not surprisingly, it wasn’t too long before the Rooskies stepped into the breach and committed to purchase of five hundred million dollars of sugar purchases, oil at below market rates, and an unending supply of arms.  Hmm.  Is it possible that we did it to ourselves?

A quick aside about the Bay of Pigs:  You all know the myth now referred to as the Bay of Pigs.  I’ve now concluded, after much research and close inspection,  that the stories we’ve heard are so far fetched, so rooted in emotion and pre-supposition, so patently stupid, so pre-determined to fail, that it really didn’t happen.  Some clever media people, who owed money to the Cuban mob, made the whole thing up and I’m not going to include in it my history.

In January of 1962, John Kennedy, now stuck with the Cuban mess, directed his main man, Pierre Salinger to scour the US markets for Cuban cigars, buy all he could quickly and deliver them to the White House.  Having secreted away around twelve hundred of Cuba’s finest cigars, Kennedy invoked the power given him by the Foreign Assistance Act passed by congress in September 1961 and closed Cuba to all travel, commercial transactions, and aid.  The door on Cuba slammed shut, and hasn’t opened since.

Such was the beginning of sixty years of economic insanity whose level rose and ebbed as US political parties went in and out of power.  As recently as 1992, George Bush the Elder signed the Cuban Democracy Act (don’t you just love the names of these bills) which the president proclaimed, “would bring Castro to his knees in weeks.”  So much for prognostications from the Bush clan.  If the purpose of the embargo has been to strangle Fidel and create a new democracy in the model of the United States, it hasn’t worked in the sixty years of the embargo. Unfortunately, many in congress either didn’t get the word or don’t read.  Florida  GOP congressman, Connie Mack opined recently that, “the US economic embargo must remain in place until tyranny gives way to freedom and democracy”.  I don’t think he was talking about North Korea.

Oh, btw, the United Nations voted for the first time in 1991, to condemn the US embargo on Cuba.  It has been reaffirmed  every year since, twenty-one times. We used to get four votes of support, now we only get two.

While in Cuba, we met with the Rev. Manuel Suarez who is the pastor of the Ebenezer Baptist Church, the Director of the Martin Luther King Foundation of Havana and a member of the Cuban parliament.  He spoke eloquently of the hopes of the Cuban people.  He painted a grim picture of their plight, but gave examples of how their very humanity and spirit had allowed them to continue to exist.  He asked one thing of us and of the American people.  He asked us plaintively, “please don’t leave us alone”.

There is hope that sanity will ultimately prevail.  The Obama administration has relaxed travel restrictions.  In the last year five hundred thousand people from the US visited Cuba.  Of these, four hundred thousand were Cuban’s living in America who went to visit relatives.  The other hundred thousand were people like S. and I who wanted to know more about Cuba and it’s people.  Special interest groups have lobbied successfully for loopholes in the trade restrictions, so now in face of the embargo which remains, we are a significant exporter to Cuba of agricultural and medical products.  Cuba has the best literacy rate in South and Central America and its health care system has allowed Cuba to have a lower infant mortality rate than the US.  They actually export doctors to other countries.  Yet, while you can get a kidney transplant in Cuba, you can’t buy an aspirin.  Go figure.

I’ve asked everyone who might have an opinion how this economic blockade of Cuba supports either the economic or security interest of the United States.  You know the answer I got.  No one, excepting a few Cuban emigre money men and political power brokers in Miami, thinks that it does.